Brexit is coming at a time when there is probably more consumer awareness of animal welfare than ever before. There should be no question of British animal-welfare standards changing with the UK leaving the EU. […]
Ruminant livestock farmers have the unique potential to manage the British countryside to deliver a number of public goods, alongside profitably producing environmentally-sustainable premium-quality meat. The potential ‘prize’ is a carbon-neutral UK ruminant livestock sector, as part of a rural landscape that delivers a number of publicly-desired ecosystem services. […]
Farming policy should be driven by the food and nutritional requirements of the nation. Post-Brexit policy will be developed at a time when there is rising controversy over what constitutes a healthy, well-balanced diet, including the linkages between nutritional, ethical and environmental issues. […]
Biodiversity must exist across all British farmland. Farming must be about food production, stewardship of the environment and our landscapes. Food and farming policy must promote a mutually beneficial approach to produce wholesome food, enhance farmland biodiversity while preserving Britain’s landscapes. […]
What role does – or can – farming and food play in mitigating climate change? Retaining and storing carbon in the soils should be an obvious climate-change mitigation, improving soil fertility through the natural processes of grazing, returning animal manures, and using legumes to fix atmospheric nitrogen has the indirect benefit of reducing the farmer’s reliance on artificial nitrogen fertilisers manufactured using fossil fuels. […]
The food security of the British population and its following generations cannot be simplified into a policy founded on the erroneous principle that the global market will always provide. It is vital for the food security of the British people that a sizeable proportion of the nation’s food comes from accessible and reliable sources operating regenerative food systems. Chapter 1 by Stuart Meikle. […]
In all likelihood, the UK will leave the European Union. In place of the CAP, it has drafted a new Agriculture Bill which is passing through parliament at the moment. What does this bill look like? What are the implications? What further amendments are needed? Vicki Hird talks us through the details. […]
The dynamics of small and large scale farms in post-Soviet countries is fascinating. Natalia Mamonova unpacks some of the complexities and intracties in this interview. […]
Natalia Mamonova examines Ukrainian peasants’ responses to land grabs and agribusiness expansion. It discusses the post-Soviet context, forms of incorporation of the rural population in land deals, the lack of rural protests and mobilization, and the prospects for small-scale agriculture in the country. […]
Over the last few years, Ukraine went through dramatic political, socio-economic and cultural changes. Dr. Natalia Mamonova investigates how the rising Ukrainian national identity and patriotic sentiments during the geopolitical conflict with Russia changed the ways in which Ukrainian smallholders see their household farming. The revealed transformation may lead to an emergence of a food sovereignty movement in Ukraine. […]
UK Ag minister Micheal Gove has claimed Brexit is a golden opportunity to create an independent, public goods focused national agri-food policy. This policy position has been praised by many, from environmentalists to the NFU. However, is he speaking with a forked tongue? And if not, then what might this potentially radical rupture signal for the EU and CAP? […]
The Yorkshire Dales is an upland area of Yorkshire, Northern England. Agriculture has been an integral part of the area’s culture and economy for thousands of years. A hill farm agricultural system is upheld here, with sheep as the primary livestock, although many have diversified into mixed beef systems, and dairy operations in the lower valleys. How has CAP – and its changes over time – impacted on this place and its people? […]
Mainstream UK media have presented Brexit minister David Davis (left, without negotiating papers) as the public face of the country’s progress with Brexit talks. However, the press has studiously overlooked the back-room activities of the international trade minister Liam Fox, who has been rolling up his sleeves and starting to size up Tariff Rate Quotas (TRQs) held by the European Union at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). In an extraordinarily wide-reaching plan described as a “Technical Rectification”, Fox is planning to unilaterally carve out what he judges to be the UK’s share of TRQ tonnages for third country imports such as New Zealand sheepmeat and register the results with the WTO. The story emerged thanks to Sky News journalist Faisal Islam, but only because the TV chain was filming Fox in action at the WTO headquarters in Geneva. In the past, technical rectifications have been more limited in scope, but this editing is on an industrial scale: Fox is not waiting for Davis to get round to discussing trade with the European Commission before trying […]
NGOs are urging a root and branch reform of agricultural policy to take the place of the CAP in the post-Brexit years. The Sustain alliance has published a four-part policy briefing. This is part two of our mini series presenting two scenarios from the UK for life #AfterCAP. […]
A silver lining in the Brexit cloud is that people can radically rethink how food, farming and the rural space operate in the UK. What will this mean for direct payments, for environmental regulations, for food security – and who will do the hard work of farming? Finally, is some of this blue sky thinking of interest to the rest of Europe? […]
Agricultural and Rural Convention